Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Uninspired"

The long running Quake franchise was and is one of the most acclaimed FPS series to date. It gained much of this praise, however, on its native PC platform rather than on the consoles. Quake II was the second appearance of the series on the Nintendo 64 after the Quake 64 port from 1998. In contrary to its predecessor, though, Quake II on the N64 featured all-new levels and multiplayer maps. And while this makeover was a welcome addition given the original Quake II was already 2 years old by the time the N64 version came out, it still didn't keep this game from feeling fairly outdated.

The setting for this shooter is yet another variation on invading alien bases to shoot cyborg-like scum, and will not even be noted by those who have already experienced shooters with a similar concept such as Doom or Duke Nukem. The gameplay itself is no different: it's the usual 'find the key, open new door, repeat 3 times' kind of scavenging that has been the basis of most FPS games ever since Wolfenstein 3D saw the light in 1992. Taking into consideration, however, that more Goldeneye and Turok 2 had already provided more original takes on the genre by the time Quake II came out for the Nintendo 64, the gameplay inevitably feels dated, the more because there also were more satisfying traditionally styled shooters out there, Doom 64 being but one of many of them.

The controls seem to be this game's biggest problem. While they are fully customisable, they will rarely allow the player to forget that he's playing a game that clearly was not designed for the Nintendo 64. Granted, the levels have been designed with the N64 in mind, but at the core remains a game engine that feels incredibly clunky when one tries to master it with an analog stick and the C-buttons. Especially when compared to Goldeneye, which is -granted- a N64-exclusive shooter and thus more focused on that console, the difference in fluidity and playability is enormous, which largely goes at the expense of Quake II's fun factor.

Unfortunately, Quake II didn't quite make up in terms of technical specs. While some of the sound effects were satisfactory, such as the explosions and launching a grenade, the ambient noises that serve to replace actual music just doesn't quite do it. And whilst not being at all bad graphically, there were a lot of better looking games on the market well before this was released in 1999.

What we were left with is a game that just couldn't seem to hide that it was already quite dated by the time it came out, nor that it was a PC game at heart. Those who enjoy the classic way of shooting bad guys, namely by finding keys and opening doors, might be able to distill some slight enjoyment from this title, but even at the time there were a lot of superior alternatives, leaving us with even less of a reason to go back and play this.